Singapore Airlines Is Making Some Major Upgrades For Economy Passengers

Singapore Airlines flight attendants show off a new
business class seat.REUTERS/Edgar
Su

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has revealed the latest generation of
seats they will be fitting in all new aircraft from September.
Passengers on certain flights on the London-Singapore route will
be the first to experience them.

Although the new seats are evolutionary, rather than
revolutionary, and initially will be fitted to only eight new
Boeing 777s, they are significant in some respects.

They reflect the changing demands of passengers, particularly in
the way they can use their own electronic devices in conjunction
with those of the aircraft, and provide further evidence of the
ferocity of competition in the airline business.

Their development also represents the antithesis to the degrading
factory farming attitude to passenger wellbeing of Ryanair and
its ilk. The seats have been specifically designed to allow
greater attention from cabin crew.

SIA is investing nearly US$150 million (£101m) to introduce the
seats – ‘cabin products’ in the jargon - on eight Boeing
777-300ER aircraft due for delivery in September.

The new seats will also be installed in the Airbus A350s that SIA
expects to be operating from the end of 2015. While the seats
could be retro-fitted to existing aircraft in SIA’s fleet there
are so far no plans to do so.

The main changes are: in economy, softer, more comfortable
chairs, an extra inch of legroom, power sockets and handy USB
ports; in business class, more stowage space and better lighting,
along with a flat bed 28 inches wide - the industry’s widest,
claim SIA. In first class the bed is even bigger – 35 inches wide
and 82 inches long. The first class seats, of which there are
only eight on the 777 - all upholstered in dark brown leather -
offer greater privacy, more cubby holes for stowing personal
possessions and more sophisticated lighting.

Economy passengers with Singapore Airlines will have
new 11-inch screens.REUTERS/Edgar
Su

The Panasonic in-flight entertainment system, controlled with
touch-screen handsets, is the same in all three classes, except
for the size of the LCD screens. All are bigger.

Those in first have been increased to 24 inches, in business to
18 inches and in economy to 11 inches. With some 230 movies, 340
TV programmes, 80 games, 790 CDs, as well as radio, audio books
and Berlitz language lessons, there are more than a thousand
options available on demand. Passengers in first and business
classes have noise-cancellation headphones.

In-flight connectivity will allow internet surfing, emailing and
text-messaging, services that SIA have already introduced to a
number of their existing aircraft. All the new seats will have
USB ports; in first and business there will also be HDMI ports to
allow passengers to view their own video or photos through their
seat screens.

One novel feature is that you can send messages to passengers in
other parts of the plane, which will be useful for groups. But if
Charlize Theron in seat 1A wants to block any billets doux from
her admirer in 47D, she can.

Some personal observations from today’s launch – I was interested
when James Park, managing director of London-based James Park
Associates, who were involved in designing the business class
cabin, told me that part of his brief was for all seats to be
forward facing. SIA customer research has shown that people don’t
like flying backwards.

They have also retained the elaborate bed arrangement in first
and business classes which involves a cabin attendant folding
down the seat backrest to form the bed platform. Apparently that
‘enhances the interface’ between passenger and crew. Who wouldn’t
like to have their bed made for them by a Singapore flight
attendant?

The dedicated bed also means you sleep on fresh linen, not on a
leather seat. “Who wants to sit on a bed or sleep on a sofa?” as
one designed put it to me.

Was it significant that the launch took place within days of BA
introducing its A380? If you haven’t got a new aircraft to
announce, you might as well invite 100 or so members of the
international media to see you unveil a seat.

The new economy chair did seem very comfortable and for me, at
5ft 10ins, legroom would not be a problem. But upper body room
would. It will be difficult either to eat or work at the small
tray table when the seat in front is fully reclined.

The business class seat is a whopping 28 inches wide, almost 50
per cent wider than those in rival airlines. Some people don’t
like it, but who in their right mind ever complained of too much
room in an airliner?